VIVISECTION. 441 



the assumption, namely, that the performance of operations 

 is and should be regarded as constituting the highest aim of 

 surgery, the ideal perfective goal to which surgical education 

 should tend. The legitimate aims of surgery are not in this 

 direction, but in one diametrically opposed. Looking back 

 on a somewhat long experience with surgeons of many grades 

 and social ranks on surgeons of many nationalities I can- 

 not call to mind a single one of mark or position who failed 

 to own that a surgical operation, so far from being a triumph 

 of surgical skill, implied a defect ; in the sense of being a 

 tacit acknowledgment of the mastery of disease or accident 

 over the surgeon's curative power. This reasoning is in the 

 highest degree applicable to amputations and excisions; but 

 there are few, if any, surgical operations to which the remark 

 is not applicable in some measure. 



So far as my experience enables me to judge, surgeons 

 high and eminent in their calling look upon all the class of 

 excisions and amputations very much as philanthropists and 

 statesmen look upon war as a necessary evil, that is to say 

 inseparable from the conditions of humanity indeed, but still 

 an evil, and hence, when possible, to be avoided. Not only, 

 so far as my experience extends, have surgeons of highest 

 mark and fame been men of tender mental organisation, but, 

 what is more, the most highly endowed in this respect have 

 proved themselves the best operators. 



As affording a pertinent illustration, an incident comes to 

 mind that may here with propriety be stated. It was a 

 question of removing the scapula or bladebone of a man, 

 together with the corresponding arm, on account of disease 

 underneath, which had extended some way amongst the im- 

 portant vessels of the armpit, or axilla. Operation was finally 

 decreed, the intending operator being one who then was, as 

 he still is, a surgeon attached to one of the largest metro- 

 politan hospitals. This being an unusual as well as a terrible 

 operation, the prospective operator set about qualifying him- 



